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Ants and Salt

When my very good friend Deb Sparrow sent me this photograph of a harvester ant collecting a piece of a blue corn chip that had fallen from her lunch, I immediately took it at face value. A harvester ant carrying a corn chip seems like an obvious combination. After some research, however, I am beginning to wonder whether the ant was also interested in another, not so obvious, aspect of the corn chip.

Photograph by Deb Sparrow (near the Hassayampa River in Arizona)

Recent research has shown that certain ants collect salt (sodium chloride). Michael Kaspari, Stephen P. Yanoviak, and Robert Dudley presented different species of ants baits with varying concentrations of salt (NaCl) versus two concentrations of the standard bait attractant, sucrose solution in water.

The scientists found the ants responded to the salt solutions depending on their distance from the ocean. Ants near the ocean presumably would have more salt available, carried to the land by wind and storms. In general, the further from the shore, the more the salt solution attracted ants and the steeper the dose response.

One interesting exception, however, were ants that generally are thought of as carnivorous, for example fire ants of the genus Solenopsis. The idea is that carnivorous ants get their salt through their prey, whereas vegetarian species, like the harvester ant above, would need to supplement their diet. The researchers also found that ants of the genus Pheidole did not respond to salt. The diets of many Pheidole are not well-studied, but at least a portion are also seed harvesters.

Guess I'll be paying more attention to ants and salt from now on. I have to say that here in Arizona our water, and thus irrigated soil, is full of salts. In fact one of our main rivers, the Salt River, is named for the natural salt springs that feed it. Maybe our natural abundance of salt is one of the reasons why we have such a variety of ants.

I found your story from searching "ant and salt". Why was I searching that? you may ask. Because this morning I found 2 ants trapped in my salt shaker which is probably the 3 time already this week. Then also a bunch of black ants got into my fish sauce(dark asian sauce full of sodium). All while there was 2 box of donuts near-by untouched by ants. The ant's behavior is just a bit unexpected this year.

We live on the 3rd storey of a big Victorian house (UK) which is an unlikely venue for ants BUT we noticed an army of them coming over our carpet to feast on left over battered fish and chips! After getting rid of them we had no repeat visits until we next had fish and chips ... same thing happened! We then discovered a very small hole under the window frame (big bay) which was their entry point... from the front garden...it's now filled in!!!

WHY FISH & CHIPS???? Nothing else has ever attracted them to climb 3 storeys up our outside wall... even with the window open! We had salt and vinegar and tomato ketchup on them? It was battered cod btw!!! Are ants attracted to fish and chip shops????